Villa 32

Lilly and I finished our MA's this summer and as a graduation present my parents treated us to a day at Villa 32. It is a Relais and Chateaux rated spa and luckily reachable by the Taipei subway. It is located in the leafy neighborhood of Beitu. Below is the actua hot spring that feed the spa before it is piped into bathing pools. You can see the steam rising.
Villa 32 is a spacious garden and spa building. As expected you can't take pictures of the bathing areas but here is a shot of the exterior.
We spent more than 2 hours lounging in their shaded pools and felt very pampered as the staff attentively waited on us. After the soak we had lunch in the house. Their chef is a Michelin rated Italien cook. You can see a little half picture of him on the table. Lilly also liked all the floral arrangements around the villa.


For lunch we were served a simple summer meal of salad, steak or fish, and chocolate icecream with coffee.



A truely fantastic day. Thanks Mom and Dad.

Serious Pancakes

Throughout our visit to Taiwan we have sampled various version of red bean pancakes. None were blog worthy. But last night at the Longshan night market we found one we really liked. The man who made them was very serious which seemed in stark contrast to the delicate and sweet treats he made. We were not alone in watching him work. There must have been 10 people silently watching him make pancakes. He first filled molds with a sweet batter.
He then pressed wells into the batter and filled them with either banana cream, peanuts, or red beans. You can see the big vats of filling in the first pic and in the second pic you can see it placed into the 3rd and 4th row of pancakes. I



In the first two rows are pancakes with thier caps on.
The final product was warm, still gooey in part (but in just the right way), and stuffed liberally with red beans. This was one of our best deserts of the trip.

Dintaifung Take Two

Lilly and I couldn't resist another visit to Dintaifung for dumplings. We learned the names of their cartoon mascots. There is Bao Zai the walking female soup dumpling and Long Zai her boyfriend and walking steamer basket. What a cute couple.

We had our favorite soup dumplings again but also tried some new foods. Here were our favorties. The spicy and sour soup. It has velvety strips of egg and liver meat. We happily finished a huge bowl


Also the spicy shrimp wantons. They sell the spicy oil they use, but it was too big for our carry on (we only have carry on). Not being able to take spicey oil back from Taiwan is perhaps one of the hardest realities of the war on terror.

Fish n' Chips

This last year I lived in Cork Ireland and became a devoted patron of a particular fish and chips shop. It was called Jackie Lennox's and I'm not alone thinking it has the best fish and chips in Munster. I came to love a good fried fish. Luckily at the Longshan night market in Taipie they make a mean fried fish. For dinner Lilly and I went to street full of stalls only selling fresh sea food.


You don't have to have them fried. But our Chinese is not the best and we inadvertantly ordered only fried items. They were really tasty though. We tried this clear white fish. We have no idea what it really is.



Then we had this crab.


Although we didn't get any chips I still think the analogy is apt.

Gorges not Gorging

Lilly and I took a break from our regular pattern of city exploration and eating to visit one of Taiwan's national parks. We visited the Taroko Gorge. This rugged and breath taking landscape was originally developed by the Japanese who built roads to move troops deep into the mountains to "pacify" the indigenous Taiwanese. Today the highway brings throngs of tourists (mostly Taiwanese but we also saw some mainland Chinese tours). The city of Hualien has started a free shuttle to transport people around the park. We took full advantage of this and had a wonderful day amidst some remarkable scenery.
Above is us at the Shrine of Eternal Spring.

Above is me at the Buddhist temple of Tiansiang.
Suspension bridge also in Tiansiang.

Hualien Dumpling City

Lilly and I are now in the Pacific coast city of Hualien. Unexpectedly we have had some of the best dumplings of the trip here. Above is a pork dumpling vendor with steam baskets piled high (I love these). But our favorite in Hualien has been a dumpling soup shop called Daiji Bianshi.

They only serve one thing pork dumpling in soup. It costs a little less than 2 dollars a bowl and is a fantastic meal.


It has a simple clean taste. The broth is light and the dumpling wrappers melt in your mouth. It is a very basic set-up with one side for dumpling making and one side for broth making.


We like it so much we went back twice in two days. We highly recommend it to anyone visiting Hualien. It's a well known shop and any local can direct you but here is their business card just in case.

Proper Street Food

The best street food is simple, tasty, and down right unhealthy. Above is a great example. check out the huge vats of bubling oil for fried chicken. This maxim was also demonstrated by night market hot plates. We ate these at the Taitung night market. This is a shot of the stall we ate at.


A simple meal of pork steak covered in spagetti noodles, drenched in gravy, and then you add a fried egg. Easy, greasy, delicious.

This meal was really popular. Dozens of tables of people getting these hot plates. The couple running the stall worked like a machine heating plates, grilling meat, and dishing out cups of corn soup to wash the whole thing down.


Booya!